Thursday, February 2, 2012

Boy Approved

"Why do we do crafts all the time now?" asks a rowdy boy.
"Would you rather do a worksheet?" I reply.
"Heck no. I mean, at least we made football players."

I do have to admit, my class has become much more crafty in the past few months. How could I not be after seeing all these awesome ideas that my bloggy friends share?

I have always sucked struggled with teaching writing. It's hard. I don't like it. Next year I plan on doing writing workshop, but I don't want to start it at the same time as reading workshop. So this year I have been trying to be more proactive at teaching writing. I know that Common Core wants us to move away from writing personal narratives, so we have focused a lot on writing paragraphs that choose a side and use supporting details.

For our first writing activity, we used Teri's super bowl craftivity. She has the pattern for just $1. It is so adorably cute! We talked a lot about making predictions, and we talked about how we could support our predictions.

I gave my students two options. One, write their prediction for who will win this year's Super Bowl and support your prediction. Two, write their prediction for who will be in the Super Bowl next year!

I am a big Carolina Panthers fan (even though they usually stink), but I live in Panthers Country and my dad has worked for the Panthers since I was 8 so I have grown up with it! So I was thrilled to see all the Panthers Players that my students created! Along with lots of other cute little players.

This sweetie wore her Steelers jersey the next day to match her player. Too bad it's the Steelers....

Oh Yeah...Panthers!

My boys really enjoyed this project and I was amazed at how much they could remember about football players and teams (but can't remember their times tables. ha)

Teaching third grade, I can't do all of the cute holidays projects I see in the younger grades, but I fit in this cute Groundhog Day Writing Project! I got the pattern from Jennifer for free!

Going along with our "choosing a side and supporting it" theme. The students decided if they were happy or unhappy that the groundhog saw it's shadow. Most of the students were unhappy because they were ready for summer! It's funny because we have had zero snow, and the temps have been in at least the 50's for most of the winter!

Well, here are some of the finished products!

(this one needs a nose but his writing was too funny)

Well, I need to work on some assessments for tomorrow! Have a great Thursday friends! :)

6 comments:

would you believe that if I didn't do all these craft ideas (thank you blogland!), my kids would never do art??? and they are Sooooo lacking in the skills dep't. that it takes forever to do them! ah! but they need it. Art is so important!!! so kudos to you girl:) even being in 3rd grade with that big test...I taught 3rd for 7 years, I know the limitations you have - so glad you are fitting it in still!

Super fun! I had a conversation yesterday with one of my boys about the Super Bowl. He was disappointed that I am not pulling for one team. I told him I would pull for the team with the uniforms I like the most. :) But I do LOVE that Steelers player! :) Yeah!

Wow! I must do this! About writing, check out the Trait Crate by Scholastic. It uses the Six-Traits writing program and has poems set to songs to teach about ideas, organization, voice, word choice, sentence fluency, and conventions. I saw where one teacher had made VOICES (like CAFE or FACE for reading). She used Exciting Word Choices for the E. The others fit. ;) Maybe this will help with writing.